


Rota Fortunae

by Tansetsu



Category: Original Work
Genre: Action, Fantasy, Gen, Modern Era, Psychic Abilities
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-04 04:24:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6641347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tansetsu/pseuds/Tansetsu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The start of Rota Fortunae and the introduction of our female lead Erika as she has a peculiar encounter during her morning jog.</p>
          </blockquote>





	1. Preface

###  **Preface**

All things considered, I believe it’s about time I talked about that infamous string of incidents.  
  
Yes, those ones exactly.  
  
They started with a series of gruesome murders, and led up to the second revolution in the history of this nation.  
  
Nowadays revolution is such a convenient word.  
  
When the serfdom rises against the nobles who’ve kept them in their place it’s a revolution of the castes.  
  
When people who disagree with the current policies of the government all band together regardless of race and social standing in protest it’s the people’s revolution.  
  
When tired old traditions are collectively smashed by new ideals entrenched in newborn optimism it’s a cultural revolution.  
  
It can be used for anything from the mundane to the grandiose of subjects, a convenient word indeed.  
  
However there’s a second reason why that word is convenient, can you see it?  
  
Yes, that’s it exactly; I’d applaud your wit if this wasn’t a monologue.  
  
The term “revolution” almost always is skewed; it endears you to the revolutionaries. In modern days people romanticize it as an uprising of the downtrodden, a surge of righteous fury that can no longer be kept in check, see even the term “uprising” is rather "uplifting."  
  
How many works of fiction have you read about a group of downtrodden individuals rising up against an oppressor figure given no characteristic other than the identity of an antagonist? Plenty I’m willing to bet.  
  
Can you see the difference between using it and revolt? The term revolt lacks finesse and gives a rather crass feeling as it rolls off the tongue, yes revolting if I do say so myself.  
  
However I digress, there is one thing that those I mentioned have in common as well. I’ll spare you the patronizing remarks and come outright with it. They’re relatively quiet. Now I know their leaders always give speeches like: “Be loud! Let no one voice go unheard.” Or “They’ve ignored our pleas for so long now is the time to make them listen!” those stock phrases etc. Yet, again I do not mean it in terms of noise. No I of all people know an idealist on a soapbox is far from quiet.  
  
I am referring to violence.  
  
Certainly in this country those modern-day “revolutions” do have their violent side. Yet more often than not it’s from police clashing with protesters, Humans thinking in a mob, us versus them etc. you get the idea. However in those cases I believe most of the violence is born from accident and misunderstanding. Few people gather together nowadays for the express purpose of starting a lynching.  
  
Yet this one was clearly “loud.” Like the sound of a train faint in the distance, most the time you won’t even notice it. But slowly it grows, it beats out a rhythm that begins to shake the earth beneath you and the steady growl soon becomes a roar. Before you know it the train is upon you and there’s little else that you can do except throw yourself out of its oncoming path and hope you reacted in time.  
  
Yes, those marches…those protests. From what you saw and read about I am 100% certain that those dry empirical articles gave nothing for the true violence of that event, that revolt. Beneath that mass of people lay the trampled corpses of the poor souls that did not have the foresight to throw themselves out of its oncoming path.  
  
But then again even without this unwelcome tidbit you already knew that this was a lynching mob from the start didn’t you?  
  
Yes it began as a march to protest corruption and abuse of power, and ended with the murder of the single most powerful man in our nation.  
  
But history is written with blood, and more often than not it’s the blood of those in power.  
  
Now, like all things this did not happen overnight, no if that was how it had happened…if it were just a group of people who got too rowdy for their own good and decided to start something this would’ve been a lot easier to handle.  
  
When people describe events like this often times the use the term trigger, as if they’re comparing it to a gun, an event is a trigger and the result is the firing of the metaphorical bullet.  
  
As appropriate as that metaphor is I hesitate to simply focus on the trigger and the firing. For you see like an event as complex as this firing a gun takes much more preparation than simply pull the trigger and seeing what happens.  
  
First you draw your firearm, then swing out the cylinder and use the ejector rod to remove the empty shells, then you load the cylinder, placing each bullet in gently yet firmly as if to reassure yourself of its place 1… 2… 3… 4… 5 …6, then you close the chamber, point the gun at your desired target, cock the hammer, the cylinder rotates into place with a satisfying click. Even pulling the trigger is a deceptively simple task. Using the rear and front sights you aim carefully then pulling the trigger brings the hammer down on the firing pin leading to the expulsion of the bullet from the barrel.  
  
When happening in real time it seems rather simple, yet describing it to you there has a lot of work that goes into properly firing a firearm whether we know it or not.  
  
By now I’m sure you get my point.  
  
That revolt was the result of years of work, in fact I’m partially inclined to believe that it started with the birth of us. Those who’d become more than human.  
  
I don’t think the revolt was the intention from the start, rather I get the feeling that all of this was an exercise with no goal.  
  
A way to pass the time.  
  
A simple, if I change x what happens to y?  
  
So with such vague reasoning hanging in the air, where really should the starting point of this story be?  
  
The introduction of those more than human that now exclusively populate this country?  
  
The Civil War and its repercussions which lead to the dying out of the old genus of humans in this county?  
  
Or perhaps the ill-fated commune that broke itself off from society out of disgust and then quietly disappeared from annals of history?  
  
Or perhaps the string of serial murders leading to a patient burning herself and her doctor alive?  
  
While these are important events, the meat of the story doesn’t happen till many years later. Starting here would be tantamount to writing something as a prequel before writing the main story.  
  
Or rather some tidbits of background information that inadvertently led up to the event in question.  
  
I must apologize for this long preamble, as wordy as I am even I have my limits. Yet I feel I need to set this up properly for my method of storytelling. You see I abhor textbooks, especially history. An endless stream of names and dates, bland descriptions of events that betray nothing of the feel of it all… empty passages of statistics… I find that in all of these cases the individual human side of things is lost.  
  
And so I endeavor to write about this story from the point of view of one of the key players rather than telling you the statistics or the dry date by date overview. Given my involvement in this case I could write it from my own perspective…yet as much simpler that’d be I don’t think it the wisest choice.  
  
When you start a game you aren’t immediately thrown into role of the character who knows exactly what’s going on are you? No you’re given the role of a character who for one reason or another is only privy to one side, if any, of the main events of the story prior to the events of the game. That way the story itself has a chance to unfold organically without the need for an egregious elaboration of exposition.  
  
Then the question becomes whose perspective in this shall I take?  
  
The young boy who was taken in by a mafia family and raised under the care of a professional “problem solver”?  
  
The young girl whose ability went berserk one day due to psychological stress and who managed to stop an entire school’s worth of people in their tracks?  
  
The young boy who showed up on his father’s friend’s doorstep one morning, his mother and father never to be seen again?  
  
Or even, the pompous brat who saw the world as his to grasp and the fools in the oligarchical council as unwanted intruders horning in on his rightful place?  
  
No, no, they are a bit too extraordinary…  
  
Hmm… as I thought she’s the only one who’ll do.  
  
The young lady who died a dog’s death, only to be drawn against her will into the middle of all of this.  
  
One final topic before I start, as much as I enjoy this style of writing I’m much inclined to mention its limitations. Mainly because my experience of these events is limited to my own point of view, a minimal amount of fudging is required based on observations and such to write from another’s perspective.  
  
Why write like this at all then?  
  
Well you see I feel like this is the best way to portray these events from a human perspective, and you know what?  
  
I really love humans.  
  
Not that I’m inhuman myself, that kind of twist would just be silly… as a long-time observer of people I can simply say with all of my heart that I love them. Like complex little pieces of some impossibly complicated game each spinning according to their own principles, colliding with each other and rebounding about this impossibly vast game board.  
  
And so let us start with her tale, the mundane girl who was drawn into the very heart of this event.  
  
The young lady that more that than likely changed the course of history, for better or worse.  
  
Erika.


	2. The Day Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The start of Rota Fortunae and the introduction of our female lead Erika as she has a peculiar encounter during her morning jog.

### The Day Before

The sound of footsteps gently beating out an echoing rhythm throughout her body, her faint breath leaving wisps of fog behind her like a trail of clouds that soon disperse into the air, this is her morning ritual.  
  
Indeed jogging is a good way to start a story; it shows the character moving through their life at their natural pace. The world moves to their whim, and they in turn exert their agency upon their surroundings.  
  
As they plod down streets it's as if they're turning the world's film reel with their own two feet, buildings that we might otherwise never lay eyes upon are gratefully born from the horizon as our heroine approaches them.  
  
Conversely I'm not particularly fond of starting a story on a train; sure they may be a bit more convenient for your average person's travel but the character themselves have no direct effect on the scene. They're whisked away by the hum of the engine and the steady rhythmic sounds of their journey. The story itself takes their steps for them,  
  
ka-tan  
  
we pass by the intersection of 42nd and 3rd,  
  
ka-tan  
  
that park would be pretty nice to spend the day looking up at the sky,  
  
ka-tan  
  
we're approaching downtown so you better gather your things.  
  
The characters exert no will upon the story itself and are merely swept up in the rising action, as if all the world flashes by before them and the only thing they can do is wait.  
  
Yes I much rather use this way. Passive versus active and all that…  
  
And so, as I thought it's best for us to start by touching upon our heroine's daily routine of jogging.  
  
I wouldn't say she did it for any particularly concrete reason like watching one's health or because she had to hurry to where she was going. No her classes didn't start for another two hours and at her age I doubt many people put much thought into how their decisions will leave them in the future. If I had to say why, it would probably be the crisp bite of the air. That feeling of rising before the city drudges itself into its normal clattering routine of work, school, and home, that feeling of experiencing something those of us who don't care enough to wake up early rarely feel.  
  
Especially on fall days like this, when gray white clouds hang over the sky like a drawn curtain, the world has become a little grayer. Colors that would normally grab your attention seem to draw back like set piece on a stage with no spotlight. It is as if the whole world is silently fading into the darkness of the scenery and the crisp bite is the reassurance that certainly, very soon, something will begin to change.  
  
However that something is still a day away. For now this morning jog is merely an exercise in the mundane, a section of the fixed circuit that makes up everyday life.  
  
Today was one of her light days due to her impending classes.  
  
Normal days would have her completing a much larger circuit, winding her way into the heart of the district leaving the one room apartment complex supplied for her by the school. As far as her route goes the basic points are the same, a park, a favored restaurant, a cafe populated by peers.  
  
Nothing too extraordinary.  
  
She didn’t even have a set route so to speak, when she’d come to a light if it was red she’d cross where it was green thus forming a sort of zigzag pattern and ensuring that there was little time for her to stop. Jogging to her was a lot about turning the scenery.  
  
That said it isn’t like there was a lot of scenery to see, hers was a ward on the outskirts of the giant metropolitan prefecture, being placed almost exactly on the south-south-west border between the slow upscaling from rural to urban. As such while the autumns and winters got relatively chilly snow seldom fell and the climate itself was mild enough to allow her jog almost every day without having to worry about weather.  
  
Being close to the farmland had become a pride of that area, stop anyone on the street to ask and they’d brag about their refined palate due to the quality and freshness of their organic produce and meats.  
  
It was the kind of area that lined the paved streets with trees, the kind that spread the word of its farmer’s market boasting of the exclusive use of local farms.  
  
That said, to call it a hick town or the boonies would be doing the ward itself a disservice.  
  
Sure the borders of it may seem suburban at best but that’s to be expected of the edge of any city. If anything urban, suburban, or rural tend to give the idea that a place is either one or the other.  
  
Urban or not  
  
Suburban or not  
  
Rural or not  
  
Personally I would prefer to call this area as a transition point. If you were to have two completely separate colors at opposite ends and mix them in the middle, the point where one starts to become the other would be this area.  
Yes, not quite urban, not quite suburban, not quite rural but rather a gradient of the three.  
  
Ahh, yes.  
  
Thinking back on things everything about her circumstances is half assed.  
  
Just enough power to be considered about normal but far too little to be seen as powerful  
  
Living in a one room apartment supported by financial aid and work study  
  
Tittering over the boy she liked but never working up the guts to confess.  
  
Even her jogging which I noted earlier is nothing extraordinary, merely a bored college girl’s method of killing time.  
  
If I had to choose between acid or base that girl would simply be water.  
  
Everything about her is neither positive or negative.  
  
She could simply be summed up by the number 0.  
  
That isn’t to say that her ability was useless or that she was some kind of worthless existence, detrimental to herself and others.  
  
No if she were any of those things wouldn’t she be something extraordinary? Notoriety and fame aren’t very different from each other when you get down to it after all.  
  
As far as her ability goes, that would have to be:  
  
The ability to perceive certain things before they occur, defying the very nature of the enigma known as the future.  
  
Yes it would be:  
  
Precognition.  
  
Are you surprised? How can something as amazing as that be considered weak?  
  
While the concept of precognition seems amazing in theory the actual coding of the ability itself seems to have its own limits. A while back I asked a close friend, rest her soul, to elaborate on the topic and this is what she told me:  
  
“The actual act itself is like looking out into a light morning mist. The farther away you look the hazier everything becomes until you can’t even tell the sky from the ground. So this type of ability tends to have a focus. Certain things to which they squint as hard as they can at, for me it’s the lives of those around me.”  
  
Do you understand now?  
  
What is the future but the result of the present?  
  
What is the present but our current actions and intentions?  
  
Think of it kind of like dialogue tree in a visual novel. Depending on what you say and select the story itself changes accordingly. So not only do these users need to limit the observation of the possibilities down to one thing, but when you think about it… the farther away you try to look the more possibilities there are.  
  
If I were to sum it up I’d say that the farther away you can see the less accurate you become… quite the paradox indeed.  
  
As for Erika, well she was always 100% accurate with her visions. That is to say she could only see into the immediate future. As for her focus? That'd be the next words spoken to her. Yes her ability was to foresee what others would say to her before they said it.  
  
Quite the creepy, vexing, convenient, helpful, and utterly useless skill is it not?  
  
I suppose you could liken her luck in the metaphorical ability lottery as someone who enters a drawing out of obligation and wins only to find out that none of the prizes were particularly interesting to begin with.  
  
Misfortunate fortune I’d suppose it could be called.  
  
She was on the latter half of her route, her sweat stung her skin as it traded its initial warmth for the autumn cold. A simple outfit of a light athletic jacket and shorts with spats underneath as well as some athletic shoes adorned her for her every day run. She’d change out of it into her school clothes once she made it back home, but that wasn’t for another couple of blocks.  
  
Starting down a large stretch of sidewalk, she let her mind drift back to her parents at home, even then she'd always go jogging around the small farm they owned.  
  
Her parents weren't particularly talented ability users either, her mom had the ability to placate animals empathically and her father was slightly stronger than was considered normal.  
  
She'd always enjoyed the story of how they'd met, they were seated next to each other in primary school and by some trick of fate they'd stayed relatively close to each other, saying hi and chatting while in the hall and growing up together until eventually exchanging phone numbers at the end of their mandatory education.  
  
It almost seemed natural that they'd start dating.  
  
From there they'd figured the most natural thing to would be to start a farm given their abilities and the rest, as her mother would say with a happy sigh, was history.  
  
More and more lately she found herself thinking back to that story her parents had told her, the way they looked together... It was if they were one person in two. She couldn't imagine one without the other nearby.  
  
She'd always thought the same thing would happen to her when she was little.  
  
She'd imagine herself just walking down the street, or staring out the window from her seat in class, even jogging like she was now... when suddenly she'd see him. A person who just seemed to fit her, almost like she'd been living with only half a body without realizing until now.  
  
From there she'd imagined everything about her life would fall into place, he'd love her despite her low ranking ability and she'd work hard to support him. Together they'd make a small but happy living and raise their own children.  
  
When she was younger every day seemed to be full of mystery and intrigue, whenever she went for a jog or went to school the pit of her stomach would tighten with excitement at the thought today being her fated day.  
  
And eventually she did meet someone, a young boy her age by the name of Kristoph.  
  
It was with that thought that she was jarred from her memories.  
  
The sound of a car horn admonishing her as she stepped out into the street woke her from her stroll down memory lane… though in this case I suppose it was a jog.  
  
Jumping back she heard another round of honks as the car preemptively swerved to the point that it was straddling the line between lanes in order to avoid her even as she hurriedly jumped back onto the sidewalk.  
  
This wasn’t the first time this had happened.  
  
She’d been born and raised in the countryside and as such had developed a nasty habit of letting her mind wander while she went on her morning jogs.  
  
As she stood on that sidewalk, shaken from her morning rhythm she looked up into the cloudy sky, slowly taking three measured steps back until she was resting against a fence.  
  
Closing her eyes she sucked in a deep breath to try and bring her racing heart back into line, from the run and from her unintentional near miss with traffic, it felt like it was really doing a number on her ribs.  
  
Slowly letting herself be lulled into the erratic beating of her heart, as it began to find its rhythm she tried to refocus herself.  
  
“My oh my, that was quite the near miss there.”  
  
Her eyes jolted open, face reddening.  
  
She was sure no one had been around to see that embarrassing mishap of hers… then again she was sure it was safe to cross too…  
  
Looking at him, he appeared to be a young man… maybe in his late twenties to early thirties. His eyes were narrower than most people’s almost giving him the appearance of a snake…he was a good few inches taller than her but his build made him appear stringy and lanky.  
  
She glanced him over, trying appraise what kind of person he was, his slick black hair hung down towards the small of his back… longer than most boys she knew and even a few girls…  
  
He wore a light red cardigan over a black button up shirt, tucked into a dark blue pair of jeans with a pair of black shoes to round off his wardrobe.  
  
He seemed at least somewhat concerned with the clothes he wore…  
  
He kinda reminded her of one of those guys her mother had warned her about before she’d left for the city… The kind that make their rounds from nightclub to nightclub only looking for some young lady to deceive and steal away home with.  
  
His dark brown eyes, the color of some ritzy wood sanded, finished, and polished to a sheen, seemed to be evaluating her… looking her up and down from her legs to her stomach to her chest to her face.  
  
“Little ladies like you shouldn’t be playing in traffic like that y’know”  
  
He said, he hadn’t moved his mouth yet and he hadn’t spoken a word yet.  
  
But she knew what he’d say next.  
  
She was already wary of him,  
  
She was already embarrassed from being seen,  
  
She was already impatient to get back to her thoughts and her jog,  
  
As such, she broke a rule she usually observed. It wasn’t anything dire, rather calling it a rule might be an over statement. Perhaps ‘common courtesy’ would suit it much better. Either way she blurted out her reply to him as he was opening his mouth, before he could speak his jab at her pride that she was retorting to.  
  
“I’m not your ‘little lady’ and to be frank I’d rather not be anything to you. So if you don’t mind, I’ll be on my way.”  
  
Even as she vented her outrage on him she regretted it.  
  
Like I mentioned before it was a matter of common courtesy to her, think about it… if someone replied to everything you said before you said it, it’d be quite vexing wouldn’t it?  
  
This certainly was no way to smoothly defuse a situation, if anything it might piss him off and then there was no telling what he’d do.  
  
Bracing herself for a flurry of verbal abuse she pointedly turned her back on him and headed up the road, hoping that he’d be put off by her attitude.  
  
“Huh, that’s super interesting… I hadn’t even said that yet.”  
  
He had caught up and was walking beside her, making conversation as if they were simply making small talk on the train while commuting.  
  
“Is there a reason you’re following me?” She said again, fervently trying to deny any sort of possibility that the two could have an amicable relationship.  
  
“I guess it’s not mind reading then.” Came his response as he trotted along beside her, pulling out his phone and typing something quickly, his fingers were a blur. “I’m heading this way anyway, I might as well make sure you’re alright after such a terrible near death experience while I’m at it.”  
  
That second part had that hammy overacting twinge to it that set her on edge even more, even if he wasn’t trying to solicit anything from her he was without a doubt an ass.  
  
This was the worst… her morning jog had been interrupted and now she had this gross guy practically stalking her.  
  
“Hey little miss death wish-”  
  
“Could you go the hell away!” She snapped back at him.  
  
“Hmmm? but I hadn’t said anything at all again.”  
  
He was right… it was her ability again.  
  
Normally she was better than this, however her concentration was shot by his constant antagonizing, thus her ability to parse out her precognition wasn’t quite performing right.  
  
“Y’know, I get the feeling you don’t exactly enjoy my company.”  
  
She waited a few seconds to be sure he’d actually said it that time… The two had stopped at a crosswalk… the ‘do not cross’ light was up as if to mockingly force her to put up with him even longer.  
  
Normally she’d just go the other way but not only would it require her to pass by him but it’d also end up slowing her down and she had to start heading back home to get ready for school.  
  
“Yeah, so why don’t you leave me alone.”  
  
“hmm~ is that why you tried to walk in front of that car, because you couldn’t stand me?”  
  
She wasn’t going to dignify that with a response.  
  
However he seemed to take silence as permission to continue.  
  
“Gotta say it hurts my heart to receive such a chill from someone I barely know… it’s almost like you’ve got your own north wind goin on over there.” He said, his voice dripping with mocking self pity.  
  
Ignoring him seemed to be the best option so she stared at the bright red ‘Do Not Cross’ sign and contemplated jumping into traffic.  
  
Seeing her stare at the traffic light he seemed to pause for a second, and just as she thought he’d finally gotten the message, he opened his fat mouth again.  
  
“So, I have a kind of riddle for you, ready? When is a traffic light safest?”  
  
He said it with literally no pause to see if she was ready or not, either way this caught her off guard. She’d expected him to keep poking at her but a riddle? Really?? This seemed a touch juvenile if she did say so herself.  
  
Still she guessed it worked as she answered him before she could think better.  
  
“When it says to cross… right?”  
  
If she had to name one weakness it’d probably be that she loved puzzles… puzzles and riddles. Even to the point of answering this absurd one from a random creeper she’d met on the street.  
  
Well… it’s not like there was any harm in it anyway.  
  
“Bzzt wrong” He said making an ex with his two pointer fingers a bemused smirk on his face.  
  
“Think about it, it’s safer to be told there’s danger when it’s actually safe rather than vice-a-versa yeah? So it’d be when it says ‘Do Not Cross’ like right now.”  
  
“I guess.”  
  
She’d been wrong, this was incredibly stupid. She regretted falling to his childish baiting.  
  
“If you think about it, a world full of signs giving you the green light to go do anything you want would be a lot more dangerous than one full of red lights telling you to tread carefully.”  
  
She’d learned her lesson, she wasn’t going to fall for his provocations anymore.  
  
This whole conversation seemed to be like someone trying to play with a cat that had firmly decided it wanted nothing to do with said person. They’d wave the cattail and other toys in front of it, and maybe sometimes it’d catch itself playing along but it’d always return to its dignified disdain.  
  
In short, it was an exercise in absurdity.  
  
The two sat in silence, god this light was taking forever… he seemed to be gauging her response.  
  
“Hey, have you heard of the tale of the North Wind and the Sun?”  
  
He tried again.  
  
She ignored him again.  
  
“hmm, well long story short, the Sun and the North Wind make a bet… about something or other.. it’s not important.”  
  
He said, glancing around as if trying to pull a specific file from a giant wall of files and papers.  
  
“Either way they see a traveler and try to see who can make him take off his coat. The North Wind blows as hard as it can, trying to tear the clothes right off his back.”  
  
He was making motions with his hands and adding emphasis with his voice… he seemed to really be getting into it.  
  
“But, shivering from the cold of it all the traveler did was bundle up tighter, holding to his clothes as tight as he could, and y’know what happens next?”  
  
If she’d ignored him before what made him think she’d answer him this time. He didn’t seem to care though.  
  
“The sun comes out and gently warms the traveler, heats him up so he’s all warm and comfortable… like a nice toasty house on a snowy day yea?”  
  
Silence.  
  
“So what do you think he does but takes off his coat and the sun wins… see what I’m sayin here?”  
  
Honestly no, she didn’t see what he was trying to get at. There was so many holes and leaps of logic with him that she’d given up taking him seriously.  
  
“I’m saying, if you lend me a hand here I’ll leave you alone. Sound good?”  
  
She heaved an exaggerated sigh and turned to him, the crosswalk flashing ‘Walk’ behind her.  
  
“What?”  
  
“I’m looking for a building at this address, mind giving me some directions?” he asked holding out a small piece of paper, about the size of a business card, with an address written on it.  
  
She could tell by the strokes of the letters and numbers that it was written hastily, however it was still legible… almost immaculately so.  
  
And this request was so… innocuous she’d honestly expected him to ask to see her chest or for her phone number or something.  
  
Heaving a lesser sigh she pulled out her phone from her jacket, brushed aside a lock of brown hair that’d stuck itself to her face while she was jogging, and looked up the address on her phone.  
  
“Got it?” she said, being sure to show him the turn by turn directions as he wrote them down.  
  
“Hmm I see I see, kids these days really do have convenience in the palms of their hands don’t they?”  
  
“I’m not a kid.” She grumbled, still holding her phone out for him.  
  
“I see, well I’ve got it memorized, here take this as my thanks.” He said handing the small paper with the address on it to her.  
  
The lights had changed again and he crossed the opposite street waving goodbye to her and headed in the completely wrong direction from where he should be going before she could protest.  
  
Well at least he was finally gone… but now she had to wait for the light to change again.  
  
She’d been absent mindedly thinking back to his blather about red lights signaling danger being safer than green lights signaling safety while flipping over the paper in her hand. However upon doing so some text caught her eye.  
  
There was a phone number and a small note written just under it.  
  
“To Erika Reis, when you have no idea what else to do drop me a call and I’ll send you on your way free of charge.”  
  
She felt disgust boil up from the pit of her stomach, so he was just trying to slip her his number in the end. The text had all been print except for her name, which had been written in same as the address on the back, so it was obviously something he’d mass produced.  
  
She thought about tearing it in two but just couldn’t bring up the effort to.  
  
Sighing she jammed it in her jacket pocket with her phone and stared at the red “Do Not Cross” light flashing before her.  
  
“Ah!” She thought out loud gasping a little.  
  
“My name…. I never told him it….”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This marks the end of the material I've had written prior to making an account on this site so expect updates to slow down a bit. Here's hoping you enjoyed this chapter and are looking forward to the next.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thank you very much for reading this. I hope that this formatting is a little easier to digest compared to my short story post, and that people are interested to see where this work is going.  
> Moving on to the meat of things, this series is the reason I joined AO3, as of writing this now there are going to be two major arcs with an intermission in between. It is my goal that by posting this work to AO3 that it'll help motivate me to get this thing to paper finally. My idea for this work is it's told by one of the characters in the story, neither they nor I will tell you who but I'm hoping that you'll be able to guess by the end of it. That being said, I hope you can see why I wrote the chapter as flamboyantly as I did, my goal was really to give the reader a sense of who this character is without overtly introducing them. So to any who found it a little hard to swallow I apologize and hope subsequent chapters will be enough to regain your favor.  
> Finally the name Rota Fortunae isn't the finalized title, however I'm horrible about names and titles so I surfed the net a bit googling synonyms for things. I chose this as the wiki defined it as a "Medieval and ancient philosophy referring to the capricious nature of fate." and as Fate is going to be playing a decently sized role in this story I thought it appropriate. I hope you're looking forward to the next chapter, and I hope to get it to you soon.


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